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It looks like the PSU English Majors Facebook page.

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It looks like the PSU English Majors Facebook page.

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I know that Learning Communities have been a part of the Cooperative Extension program throughout the US for a long time. Perhaps we can find some good models by reaching out to our Coop Ext colleagues at UNH and ask them to come to Jan Jamboree to discuss how they use LC's effectively across a big organization with many programs...
See https://www.joe.org/joe/2008juneorig/a1.php

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a place to validate the central purpose of our work at PSU - we are teachers, first and foremost!

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a place to validate the central purpose of our work at PSU - we are teachers, first and foremost!

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A learning community provides space and a saftey net to take risks and lean into our growing edge.

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It is a place where we go to recharge and be inspired. Where we learn from each other, support each other's successes and pick each other up when we fall.

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It is a place where we go to recharge and be inspired. Where we learn from each other, support each other's successes and pick each other up when we fall.

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Rarely in my lifetime have I been involved in a learning community where we are all allowed to be who we are and learn without judgement.  For me, the grace and synchronicity of a well choreographed dance is what I want it to be.

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Learning communities are places to reflect, question, grow, challenge, and support because the ideal takes a village.

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Discover & share this Cutest GIF with everyone you know. GIPHY is how you search, share, discover, and create GIFs.

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thinking together, sharing ideas, supporting each other

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thinking together, sharing ideas, supporting each other

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A space we all get to hangout together and share common goals - growth!

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A space we all get to hangout together and share common goals - growth!

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Slow hopeful interdisciplinary thinking; much like a snail holding onto a dandelion seed just hoping the wind takes it somewhere to bloom.

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Slow hopeful interdisciplinary thinking; much like a snail holding onto a dandelion seed just hoping the wind takes it somewhere to bloom.

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-Kayla Gaudette

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"Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life." - Amy Poehler" -
Kate Elvey

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When you look calm and collected on the outside but you're geeking out going crazy on the inside.

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When you look calm and collected on the outside but you're geeking out going crazy on the inside.

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-Kayla Gaudette

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WHITNEY here using Martha's awesome computer to type this because my laptop is in another realm at moment. THIS IS WHAT A LEARNING COMMUNITY LOOKS LIKE! Helping, supporting, sharing, and enabling. 

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WHITNEY here using Martha's awesome computer to type this because my laptop is in another realm at moment. THIS IS WHAT A LEARNING COMMUNITY LOOKS LIKE! Helping, supporting, sharing, and enabling. 

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Somewhere here there was mention of a book club. We like this model for a LC. People coming together to share a common "experience" (the "book") and pulling ideas together is a good analogy for a LC. It is a culture of discussion, sharing, & equal voices.

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I think of learning communities as safe spaces to share ideas, reflect on experiences, explore possibilities, make mistakes. They're places of curiosity and encouragement--no shame or fear of judgment. Learning communities encourage you to stretch as far as you can and support you when your muscles ache.

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A learning community is like an inclusive game that everyone wants to play, with rules that are fair, flexible, and that enable everyone to succeed. When the game is over for the day, the players want to come back for another exeperience.  

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A learning community is like an inclusive game that everyone wants to play, with rules that are fair, flexible, and that enable everyone to succeed. When the game is over for the day, the players want to come back for another exeperience.  

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Julie

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A learning community inspires me to tuck in (as you would tuck in to a good meal, not as you would tuck in to bed) to the scholarship on excellent teaching.  All that information was there before, but the LC provides the social lubricant to inspire scholarly improvement.  It's the opposite of this:

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It's Alive!

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When I think of a learning community, I think of a place where ideas can be shared freely with others without fear of retribution or judgement. In anthropology and sociology, we tend to think that smaller groups where people have some personal connection and relationship are best for this type of activity to happen. As group size increases, or as you have more people without a strong social connection, there is more room for people to act in anti-social or selfish ways. So ideally I think a learning community has to be small enough, or have smaller sub-groups, where people can develop personal connections that encourage them to act kindly and generously with one another.

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*create your own family of learners
*invite others
*give thanks for the influence of others on your own learning
*wine would also help

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I've had great experiences working with a community of faculty learning about pedagogy, learning challenges, best practices, new ideas - through reflective praxis, workshops at disciplinary meetings, educational workshops within and across disciplines - transforms my perspectives again and again

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At a previous institution the department I was in experimented with a leadership model for sharing current scholarship. Each faculty person led a discussion that focused on research interests and/or current pedagogical initiatives. I found this similar to a learning community, as each of us was able to comment, question, respond, etc., on one another's work. This led to further collaborations among faculty and others external to the program. Essentially, I found this "interactive" model very useful to stimulate thinking about how what I do might be shared with others.

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Flexible, meets where you are at, responsive,
integrated and driven by student agency

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FEELING CONNECTED.

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Having fun while learning about organizations and ethical responsibility...

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Having fun while learning about organizations and ethical responsibility...

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Also at a previous institution, we had a program where faculty (For a larger community - I think this could be extended to all members of campus in many ways) could apply to a mentor pair program where peers from across campus were matched to observe each other teach, and through the program, they were given gift cards to go have lunch and debrief their observations. It was a great way to connect with folks across campus, and have external reviews/observations of their teaching.

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I think learning communities are working well when we not only feel a greater responsibility for the students in our own courses and programs, but we begin to feel a sense of responsibility for students who will never step foot in our classrooms. When I truly care about the learning in my community, it spans my most immediate realm of influence. Your quandaries stop being interesting conversation fodder, but rather, critical aspects of all our growth.

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Kids play with other kids and learn how to live.

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Kids play with other kids and learn how to live.

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it can be scary

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space to play, to experiment, to be exposed to new ideas, to be refreshed

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At a previous institution we had regular book clubs regarding contemporary issues at our institution. It was a really meaningful way of connecting across campus and working through some of the issues we dealt with.

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Wearing mustaches together in vulnerability... 

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Wearing mustaches together in vulnerability... 

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A learning community is the opposite of this photo of me looking puzzled, stuck, and alone. It shows, time and again, that I am not alone in being puzzled or caring about teaching and learning.

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A learning community is the opposite of this photo of me looking puzzled, stuck, and alone. It shows, time and again, that I am not alone in being puzzled or caring about teaching and learning.

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A learning community is the opposite of this photo of me looking puzzled, stuck, and alone. It shows, time and again, that I am not alone in being puzzled or caring about teaching and learning.

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I heard a story once about synchronicity. Apparently, as some entomologists were floating along a river at dusk, the fireflies they studied began lighting randomly. As time passed, small groups became synchronized their patterns, then those groups merged with other groups, and merged and merged...until millions of fireflies blinked on. And off. And on.

Not to suggest that learning communities are uniform or synchronous, but that eventually we work together to make sure all the lights are all on.

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Learning about social responsibility in organizations through games...

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Learning about social responsibility in organizations through games...

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Learning Communities: Prioritize time working and thinking together.

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Learning Communities: Prioritize time working and thinking together.

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A learning community looks like a place where all members can put aside differences and share a desire to evolve for the greater good of education.

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Where people are open to new ideas and ways of looking at issues and ways of working together

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Where people are open to new ideas and ways of looking at issues and ways of working together

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Ability to be vulnerable, share and support each other

It is open to dialog on issues without attribution of right or wrong, ownership, and ego.

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Think Differently and Spark Creativity

"We need to think differently!" "This needs some fresh ideas!" "We have got to be more creative around here!" Are messages like these popping up more and more in your workplace?

Faced with complex, open-ended, ever-changing challenges, organizations realize that constant, ongoing innovation is critical to stay ahead of the competition. This is why we need to be on the lookout for new ideas that can drive innovation, and it's why the ability to think differently, generate new ideas, and spark creativity within a team becomes an important skill. You need to work actively on building and cultivating this skill, and it can be done!

Often, though, we make the mistake of assuming that good ideas just happen. Or worse still, we get caught in the mind trap that creativity is an aptitude; some people have it, others don't. Then there is the other self-defeating belief - "I am not intelligent enough to come up with good ideas."

These assumptions are rarely true. Everyone can come up with fresh, radical ideas - you just need to learn to open your mind and think differently. This article shows you how to do so.

How to Generate New Ideas

Standard idea-generation techniques concentrate on combining or adapting existing ideas. This can certainly generate results. But here, our focus is on equipping you with tools that help you leap onto a totally different plane. These approaches push your mind to forge new connections, think differently and consider new perspectives.

A word of caution - while these techniques are extremely effective, they will only succeed if they are backed by rich knowledge of the area you're working on. This means that if you are not prepared with adequate information about the issue, you are unlikely to come up with a great idea even by using the techniques listed here.

Incidentally, these techniques can be applied to spark creativity in group settings and brainstorming sessions as well.

Breaking Thought Patterns

All of us can tend to get stuck in certain thinking patterns. Breaking these thought patterns can help you get your mind unstuck and generate new ideas. There are several techniques you can use to break established thought patterns:

Challenge assumptions: For every situation, you have a set of key assumptions. Challenging these assumptions gives you a whole new spin on possibilities.
You want to buy a house but can't since you assume you don't have the money to make a down payment on the loan. Challenge the assumption. Sure, you don't have cash in the bank but couldn't you sell some of your other assets to raise the money? Could you dip into your retirement fund? Could you work overtime and build up the kitty in six months? Suddenly the picture starts looking brighter.

Reword the problem: Stating the problem differently often leads to different ideas. To reword the problem look at the issue from different angles. "Why do we need to solve the problem?", "What's the roadblock here?", "What will happen if we don't solve the problem?" These questions will give you new insights. You might come up with new ideas to solve your new problem.
In the mid 1950s, shipping companies were losing money on freighters. They decided they needed to focus on building faster and more efficient ships. However, the problem persisted. Then one consultant defined the problem differently. He said the problem the industry should consider was "how can we reduce cost?" The new problem statement generated new ideas. All aspects of shipping, including storage of cargo and loading time, were considered. The outcome of this shift in focus resulted in the container ship and the roll-on/roll-off freighter.

Think in reverse: If you feel you cannot think of anything new, try turning things upside-down. Instead of focusing on how you could solve a problem/improve operations/enhance a product, consider how could you create the problem/worsen operations/downgrade the product. The reverse ideas will come flowing in. Consider these ideas - once you've reversed them again - as possible solutions for the original challenge.

Express yourself through different media: We have multiple intelligences but somehow, when faced with workplace challenges we just tend to use our verbal reasoning ability. How about expressing the challenge through different media? Clay, music, word association games, paint, there are several ways you can express the challenge. Don't bother about solving the challenge at this point. Just express it. Different expression might spark off different thought patterns. And these new thought patterns may yield new ideas.

Connect the Unconnected

Some of the best ideas seem to occur just by chance. You see something or you hear someone, often totally unconnected to the situation you are trying to resolve, and the penny drops in place. Newton and the apple, Archimedes in the bath tub; examples abound.

Why does this happen? The random element provides a new stimulus and gets our brain cells ticking. You can capitalize on this knowledge by consciously trying to connect the unconnected.

Actively seek stimuli from unexpected places and then see if you can use these stimuli to build a connection with your situation. Some techniques you could use are:

Use random input: Choose a word from the dictionary and look for novel connections between the word and your problem.

Mind map possible ideas: Put a key word or phrase in the middle of the page. Write whatever else comes in your mind on the same page. See if you can make any connections.

Pick up a picture. Consider how you can relate it to your situation.

Take an item. Ask yourself questions such as "How could this item help in addressing the challenge?", or "What attributes of this item could help us solve our challenge?"

Shift Perspective

Over the years we all build a certain type of perspective and this perspective yields a certain type of idea. If you want different ideas, you will have to shift your perspective. To do so:

Get someone else's perspective: Ask different people what they would do if faced with your challenge. You could approach friends engaged in different kind of work, your spouse, a nine-year old child, customers, suppliers, senior citizens, someone from a different culture; in essence anyone who might see things differently.

Play the "If I were" game: Ask yourself "If I were ..." how would I address this challenge? You could be anyone: a millionaire, Tiger Woods, anyone.

The idea is the person you decide to be has certain identifiable traits. And you have to use these traits to address the challenge. For instance, if you decide to play the millionaire, you might want to bring traits such as flamboyance, big thinking and risk-taking when formulating an idea. If you are Tiger Woods you would focus on things such as perfection, persistence and execution detail.

Employ Enablers

Enablers are activities and actions that assist with, rather than directly provoke, idea generation. They create a positive atmosphere. Some of the enablers that can help you get your creative juices flowing are:

Belief in yourself: Believe that you are creative, believe that ideas will come to you; positive reinforcement helps you perform better.

Creative loafing time: Nap, go for a walk, listen to music, play with your child, take a break from formal idea-generating. Your mind needs the rest, and will often come up with connections precisely when it isn't trying to make them.

Change of environment: Sometimes changing the setting changes your thought process. Go to a nearby coffee shop instead of the conference room in your office, or hold your discussion while walking together round a local park.

Shutting out distractions: Keep your thinking space both literally and mentally clutter-free. Shut off the Blackberry, close the door, divert your phone calls and then think.

Fun and humor: These are essential ingredients, especially in team settings.

Key Points

The ability to generate new ideas is an essential work skill today. You can acquire this skill by consciously practicing techniques that force your mind to forge new connections, break old thought patterns and consider new perspectives.

Along with practicing these techniques, you need to adopt enabling strategies too. These enabling strategies help in creating a positive atmosphere that boosts creativity.

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Generating New Ideas: Think Differently and Spark Creativity

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Think Differently and Spark Creativity "We need to think differently!" "This needs some fresh ideas!" "We have got to be more creative around here!" Are messages like these popping up more and more in your workplace? Faced with complex, open-ended, ever-changing challenges, organizations realize that constant, ongoing innovation is critical to stay ahead of the competition.

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Learning communities are about trusting ourselves and each other to come together to figure out what we need to figure out. Our work together will result in better solutions. And lifts us all up.

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A small scale learning community is a group of people who offer support, help with problems, who share what is working and what is not. It is a group of colleagues who are working with a specific group of students.  

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A small scale learning community is a group of people who offer support, help with problems, who share what is working and what is not. It is a group of colleagues who are working with a specific group of students.  

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A larger scale of a learning community is a campus-wide, collective group of colleagues who come together a few times a year to discuss CPLC planning and the needs of PSU and it's students.

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Teachers as learners, acknowledgement that we all have so much to learn. There's no finish line.

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A collaborative process of seeking answers to questions and solving problems. Giving feedback and support to one another

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I think of a learning community as an ideal learning experience for a class where facilitator and participants are co-learners

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I think of a learning community as an ideal learning experience for a class where facilitator and participants are co-learners

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Collaborative conversations about practice, problems, and solutions.  Striving for common goals related to learning- for both students and faculty.

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Collaborative conversations about practice, problems, and solutions.  Striving for common goals related to learning- for both students and faculty.

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Learning communities should be noisy and include laughter.  People need to be comfortable and trusting with each other.

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For me, a learning community emerges through a series of "trust falls"--of gestures that show that "I have your back." "I care about what you are about too." I experience this informally, in conversations and on twitter, when I'm able to reach out to folks about an idea, question, or conundrum, and learning community members are excited to help, respond, lend a hand, or direct me a to a resource. If I am puzzled, if I am struggling, if I am "falling," I believe that learning community members can have my back in this way.

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The most successful learning communities include engaged individuals that encourage new thinking to emerge from the group that would not be possible as an individual.

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For me, I think about making learning a renewable resource, making a community where learning is part of a sustainable ecosystem.